Breathless: Why Frank and Claire Underwood of House of Cards Are My New Love Role Models

What does the perfect couple look like? It’s hard to say anymore. The cultural landscape is changing—the move toward gender and marriage equality is becoming a reality—and our vision of an aspirational couple is changing along with it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, given that the third season of House of Cards is coming out this month. Frank and Claire Underwood, the political couple at the show’s center, are childless, nonmonogamous, and equally power hungry. They’re miles away from the old-fashioned, cookie-cutter archetype of an ideal marriage, and yet, to me, they are unlikely role models in love. They’re so deeply connected, so tolerant and supportive of one another’s pursuits, that one can’t help but envy what they have. But the Underwoods are just one of many new examples of transparency and acceptance linked with intense romantic love to be found in the culture right now.

It might seem silly to cite the Underwoods as an exemplary modern couple, given that they’re fictional. But when you think about it, our perceptions of the relationships of actual people, famous or not, aren’t very “real” either—we see a carefully constructed image, or the projection of our own fantasies, but we have no idea what really goes on behind the scenes. No matter how much we speculate, or how many think pieces we write, we will never know what was actually said inside the elevator. But what’s interesting about fantasy is how it can still inform our reality. Fantasy allows us to think more creatively about our own lives, which is why one hopes that good fiction is always slightly ahead of the culture.

“I love that woman, I love her more than sharks love blood,” Frank says of Claire early on in season one. It’s clear the feeling is reciprocal. The Underwoods are a team, infinitely stronger together than apart. They also both occasionally sleep with other people. Sure, that’s not so unusual, except that the Underwoods hide nothing from each other. They are sexually lenient, both confident that their marriage is always most important. While we don’t ever see them make love, watching them share their nightly cigarette is a far more intimate experience than most sex scenes one sees on television. And I know I’m not the only one who became far too giddy when, on a hit American show, a political power couple had an MMF threesome with an insanely hot bodyguard some twenty years their junior.

“You know what Francis said to me when he proposed?” Claire asked in season one. “He said, ‘Claire, if all you want is happiness, say no. I’m not going to give you a couple of kids and count the days until retirement. I promise you freedom from that. I promise you’ll never be bored.’” Boredom is the death of a relationship, and the Underwoods have found a way to avoid it. “Fire needs air. Desire needs space,” therapist Esther Perel said in her widely viewed TED Talk, The Secret to Desire in a Long-Term Relationship. Perel’s book, Mating in Captivity, argues that the totally merged, comfort-seeking nature of the modern marriage is killing novelty and adventure. Clearly, the Underwoods’ openness is not just a facet of their intense romantic love—it’s integral to it.

Another inspiring fictional couple of late are the paramours at the center of Jim Jarmusch’s beautiful, poetic love story, Only Lovers Left Alive. The film, which came out in the U.S. last year, follows Adam and Eve, a vampire couple who have been married for literally centuries. But counter to the usual long-term relationship narrative, time has only made their love and mutual respect stronger. The film begins with Eve (Tilda Swinton) living in Tangier, and Adam (Tom Hiddleston) in Detroit. They thrive in different cities, so for the time being they’re doing the long-distance thing. Of course, theirs is a unique case, given that they’re immortal and so time is certainly not of the essence, but there’s something to be said for the ability to let your partner off the leash. And despite being half a world apart, the couple is still incredibly connected, inspiring Adam to compare their relationship to Einstein’s theory of entanglement: “When you separate an entwined particle, and you move both parts away from the other, even at opposite ends of the universe, if you alter or affect one, the other will be identically altered or affected.”

Eve goes to Detroit to cheer up Adam, who at the time is bummed on life. She puts Denise LaSalle’s “Trapped By a Thing Called Love” on the record player. It’s the most heartbreakingly sweet moment. Watching them do this extremely intimate, almost childlike dance around the living room is enough to restore one’s faith in everlasting love.

Back in the real world, a hugely aspirational romance—for me, anyway—was the recent one between the adult-film stars James Deen and Stoya. (Or, as I like to call them, “the Brangelina of porn.) Both performers have had crossover success, Deen as a mainstream actor, having starred in Paul Schrader’s The Canyons, and Stoya as a writer. Last year, I interviewed Stoya for an article about HIV awareness. She told me, “I’m really spoiled because I’m dating James Deen, and he would happily orchestrate just about any sexual fantasy that I have, and could make it happen in a safe environment.” Talk about progressive! Like, imagine if you could just say to your boyfriend, “So, last night I had this really sexy dream where two dudes broke into my apartment, covered me in whipped cream, and then forced me to cum for hours,” and then the next day he just casually made a few calls and suddenly your dream was a reality? It’s basically the equivalent of dating your sexual fairy godmother. Sadly, it appears that Deen and Stoya may have split up. I suppose all good things must come to an end.

A more commonly cited example of progressive modern love is the relationship between Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller. They’ve been together for 20 years or so now, have a son, and are painfully cute on Instagram. (Almost as cute as Cass and Ali Bird!) For years now, Savage has been an active proponent of what he calls “monogamish”—opening the door of your relationship just a crack, to keep it from blowing off its hinges, as he puts it. He says the ish helps to sidestep some of the social stigma around nonmonogamy. While many assume that nonmonogamy is an endless slutfest of ecstasy-fueled orgies (especially when it comes to gay men), that’s generally not the case at all. Savage is also very clear that he’s not supporting betrayal and believes people should honor the commitments they make. But as an alternative to an outdated conception of marriage, Savage has said the benefits of being open are “a certain kind of realism, and an allowance for some sexual adventures, whether you go on them alone or with your partner.”

Unfortunately, we still live in a world where many non-straight celebrities find it difficult to come out, for fear of hurting their careers, or of facing social backlash. It seems most people think about sexuality in black-and-white terms—you’re either gay or you’re straight, and both camps leave you very little latitude to deviate from the pack without being called a traitor. Which is why it was so cool when, last year, supermodel Cara Delevingne seemed to be publicly dating a woman and never caved to any pressure to define what that meant—it was just like, yeah, I’m with a girl now, whatever. It perfectly trivialized our culture’s obsession with labels, and relayed the message that love is about people, not about gender, in the most casual yet powerful way. If you ask me, she’s the perfect role model for the post-label future, where people love by a new set of rules.